Developer & Publisher Revolution Software
Genre: Action Adventure
Nintendo Switch
Also On: PlayStation, Xbox, iPhone
Beneath a Steel Sky was a fascinating point and click adventure that, incredibly, only seemed to gain more attention and attraction the longer it lived. Already acclaimed and well received back during it’s 199X release window, the decision of Revolution Software to make it freeware in 2003 was stunningly apt. Suddenly more people, who clearly had missed it’s initial launch due to being younger and unaware, could now embark on a fascinating post-apocalyptic story set against the Australian alternate world of The Gap, Union City and LINC. In spite of a remastered edition being put onto multiple current generation machines, fans still clamored for more. Now, more than twenty five years after the beginning, we are invited back to the world of aware AI and dystopian cyberjunk with Beyond a Steel Sky.
As a brief rundown, you are once again in the shoes of Robert Foster, orphan hero from the first game who is now grown up and several years departed from the events of Beneath a Steel Sky. Living peacefully in The Gap, his attempts to live an idyllic life are shattered when a bizarre vehicle rises from the nearby lake, attacks him and kidnaps a local child from the Aboriginal tribe. Foster tracks the vehicle back to Union City, where he assumes all is well, under the caring eye of his AI friend, Joey. Naturally, in a matter of seconds, it becomes clear that something has changed in Union City, and, without spoiling anything, we reveal that we’re still in a dystopian world for a reason. Using wits, cunning and some colorful NPCs, Foster will discover the secret of Joey and Union City and try to save the lives of everyone, not just in Union City, but even further.
Players familiar with Beneath a Steel Sky will be the first attracted to this game, but you need zero prior knowledge of the series in order to enjoy the storyline. Revolution Software did a phenomenal job in making sure that Beyond a Steel Sky was a standalone, giving players a strong cold opening while peppering in different flashbacks to help fill in the gaps and keep things cohesive. If you’ve played the first, specifically recently, you might feel that the information tends to be redundant, but a lot of it was very helpful for someone who played it more than a decade ago. After some initial setup, everything is very independent, and you don’t need to rely on classic lore in order to fully dive into the storyline.
Instead of a point-and-click 2D style, Beyond a Steel Sky takes a bold step forward in both gameplay and visuals. On the one hand, the new cell shaded visage looks wonderful and fits in well with the aesthetic and ideology behind the Steel Sky games. Foster is given a finely detailed, rugged look, and different elements of the game pop in a comic book fashion, even outside of the cut scenes. Players might get a distinct Borderlands vibe at times, but that’s bound to happen when you have coinciding factors of post-apocalyptic and cell shading together in a game. While there are times that the animation might chug a bit (when playing on a Switch Lite or in handheld mode, for example), the overall experience is a smooth one, and the attention to detail is superb. Watching characters talk, it’s clear the animation team put in the extra effort to shape mouths and teeth to give some of the best dubbing that I’ve seen in a game, and that’s really saying something.
Speaking of speaking, the sound quality for Beyond A Steel Sky is also top notch. The voice acting, which has been present for many iterations of the game, is stronger here, with some great emotion, particularly on the parts of Foster, Orana and Joey, though I give some great credit to the actor who voiced Wendell: I love a good Australian trucker voice. Outside of vocal moments, the soundtrack to Beyond A Steel Sky is wonderfully ambient, fading into the background at moments where it doesn’t matter and crescendoing dramatically during cinematic moments. A lot of the music is sort of the wavy, unearthly electronic sounds of sci-fi movies from the 70s and 80s, but that just fits in perfectly with what the developers are trying to portray in this world. There are moments where things get orchestral and the tone shifts – a scary moment when a person is trapped on the side of a building comes to mind – and then the soundtrack really flexes its muscle. It’s a great overall composition, and fans who are into the music should certainly revisit the soundtrack afterwards: it’s study and work tunes if I’ve ever heard them.
Now, as for the gameplay itself. If Beyond A Steel Sky was called anything else, I think the experience would be positively grand. You explore around in a 3rd person, 3D design, looking at multiple objects that pop up under your reticule, interacting, picking up things, giving things to other people, etc. It’s truly a point and click adventure brought into a 3D world, and it works, it works exceptionally well. It also makes sense in this new, updated world: whereas Beneath took place in multiple tight spaces with few choices or exists, Beyond is more above ground or within spacious buildings, so players can explore more, interact with a greater number of NPCS (some of whom are there just for flavor) and really appreciate what Union City looks like now. As there are no achievements in the Switch version, players don’t need to be as choosy about completionism mechanics: if you miss something, you’ll never know about it, so don’t worry your pretty little head.
On the other hand, anyone with a background in Beneath a Steel Sky will feel a grudging sense of being out of time. One of the reasons that the original thrived so well is that it did a tremendous amount with limited playing fields and resources, allowing puzzles to be complex without being too difficult and to experience what was available in a narrowed field. In this new 3D environment, players can often feel like they’re casting around for something that should be obvious. I was told, at the very beginning, to register with the city to get my U-Chip, and it took far, far too long to figure out which booth was the U-Chip area, even with signposts leading me there. It might exclusively be a problem with the Switch version, but I often felt like I lost my orientation and needed to rely on actual orienteering (remembering where city landmarks were) in order to remember which direction to head. I felt myself longing for restrictions, and this isn’t the first time it’s happened. There’s a reason Escape From Monkey Island is the lowest ranked in the series: the jump to 3D wasn’t handled well. It’s done fantastically here, but a good number of the fanbase is locked in the old ways, and isn’t thrilled with the new.
However, when all is said and done, Beyond a Steel Sky is a worthy and polished successor to the original. Moving from The Gap to Union City and even into cyberspace is a visually stunning experience, though I would recommend playing it on a larger screen to better appreciate the details. It runs nearly twice as long as the original game, but can still be done in a couple of evening’s time if you don’t want to invest too much into it. From start to finish, fans will be satisfied with the new offering from Revolution Software, and, secretly, breathe a sigh of relief. Forest has been taken on another journey, nothing was retconned or rewritten, and the plot reveals – without spoiling anything – will finally answer some lingering questions left over from the first. New and old fans, rejoice: we meet once again under a Steel Sky.
-
Gameplay
-
Presentation
-
Enjoyment